In 1864, the Rhenish Railway Company began construction of the Eifel line from Düren via Euskirchen and Gerolstein to Trier.

Numerous bridges and tunnels on the line as well as the stations at Euskirchen, Weilerswist and Kierberg were built by Hermann Schmalenbach.

But this failed because of the opposition from the military on the ground that the line was too close to the French border.

Also, a connection of the Eifel line with the Bonn–Koblenz line near Sechtem was planned, which was also never implemented (this was part of the Strategischer Bahndamm—"Strategic railway embankment"—a plan to build a western bypass of the rail nodes at Cologne and Düsseldorf to accelerate military mobilisation, although only the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen was ever completed).

Today the reconstruction of the second track in many places is difficult since its location has been put to other uses, often as a bicycle path parallel to the railway.

Regional services running at hourly intervals were introduced on the Eifel line in 1991 with additional trains north of Gerolstein or Jünkerath.

The Eifel line is served daily by following Regional-Express and Regionalbahn services:[2][3] These services are operated by DB Regio NRW, using Alstom Coradia LINT 54 or 81 diesel multiple units the timetable change in December 2013.